One For The Team
by M. the Inspector
Summary: To be allowed back to New York, the Deep has to make peace with Starlight. (Mild warning for... naked bullying?)


**A/N: I'm extremely interested to see what happens if those two characters end up in a room together again. Here's one possibility. Note it involves vaguely sex-flavored bullying, and oblique refs to past traumas. If that bugs you, might want to give this a miss!**

* * *

A knock on her hotel room door. She froze – just a second. Then she raced to the peephole. Press?

No. Worse.

"Deep," she said through the door. "What are you doing here?" _And what happened to your hair?_ It was buzzed almost to nothing. Looked terrible.

He was leaning too close – it was a weird fishbowl look (_ha – fishbowl,_ her brain joked unhelpfully) that made it hard to read his expression. "Uh, Starlight... it's me. Can I come in?"

She swallowed. "We were supposed to meet downstairs." The agreement had been that they would meet in the lobby of her hotel and chat there a couple of minutes, under the watchful eye of Vought security – supposedly to _make sure she felt comfortable, _but really, it was probably to make sure that she wouldn't go off-script and murderous when she saw him – and then take separate cars to the press conference.

"Yeah, uh, I know." He backed away from the door a little, rubbed the back of his neck. He looked miserable. _Good._ "I know, but the lobby's full of people. Reporters. I don't know how – someone must've leaked your location."

She took a deep breath. Interviews were one thing, but pushy paparazzi were something else. Getting crowded by them while she tried to size up the Deep and his supposed contrition sounded awful.

"Okay," she said, without moving. "Okay, you can come in."

"Thanks. I won't-, you know. Anything." He almost mumbled it, impatient, looking down. Like it should be obvious, like he felt silly having to say it aloud.

"Okay. Come in." Finally she backed up and unchained the door. Opened it.

He came in. Closed the door behind him.

When the lock clicked, suddenly, everything changed. Her breath stopped and her vision sharpened. There was a faraway roar in her ears.

"Starlight?" He was frowning. "You okay?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine." She wasn't fine. But what else was she supposed to say.

"Okay, well if you're not... fine... we can... do this... downstairs. Or, or not at all. It's up to you." He was looking all over the place, except at her. It was the polar opposite of the leering he'd done in the conference room, and that helped a little.

_Get it together, Starlight._ She took a deep breath and made herself think. "Do _what_, Deep?" She crossed her arms. "What are you here for?"

He shrugged and spread his hands. "I came to apologize. To make things right. Before we, you know, go on camera and tell everybody things are okay. I mean, Vought said they are, but." He waved that off. "I thought maybe I'd come check with you directly." He hazarded a smile.

It was a cute smile, a _winning _smile, and if she didn't know what she knew, it would probably have won her over.

Her stomach clenched up. She wanted the smile gone. "To make things right?" she repeated, snide and cold. "What are you planning to do to _make things right_?"

The smile disappeared. He looked confused. "Uh... I don't know. What do you-? Do you want something? I mean..."

"Yeah. I do want something." She didn't know what. But she knew that his confusion, his discomfort, his _fear_ was the right idea. She wanted him alone and afraid and encroached-on. Trapped. "And if you don't give it to me," she added, "Then maybe I won't go on TV and tell everybody I can forgive you, and maybe you don't get to come back home. How about that?"

For a second she saw anger, but then he swallowed it down. "Look, Starlight, I said I'll do whatever you want. I said I'm sorry. What else can I do?"

"You can..." She pressed her lips together, a hard frown, thinking. Alone and afraid and encroached-on. Exposed. "Take off your clothes."

His mouth fell open, soft and stupid. "What?"

"You heard me," she said. "Take off your clothes. Everything." Then, lest he get the wrong idea, she added: "But don't think you're about to get lucky. If you touch me, I'll kill you."

He still just stared at her.

"You couldn't _wait _to show me your dick in the conference room. So what are you now, shy? Hm?" She stared him down - trying not to let her eyes glow up.

Finally he said something. "Uh. I don't like to show… I mean I look… different."

"Yeah. Like I haven't seen what you look like already. Like I haven't already seen _more than enough_." Her arms were crossed over herself already; she tightened them. "Just shut your mouth and do what I tell you, Deep. If you want me to say the right things today, _do it_. Now."

He hesitated a long while before moving. Then he opened his belt, and hesitated again. Unzipped his suit from top to bottom... then hesitated some more.

"Take it off. Everything," she insisted. And waited.

This, again, was the opposite of what she remembered. Last time he'd whipped it out so fast she hadn't seen him move, but this time, he was clumsy and uncoordinated, hopping, steadying himself with a hand on the bed as he pulled a boot off. Then the other one.

He didn't look at her once. She heaved an impatient sigh to make him hurry up, and then he finally peeled the suit off, all in one go. For a second he held it in front of him (shy, was he?), before chucking it away with a hard huff of air. Like he was _scared_, and trying not to be.

He _should_ be scared.

But he still wouldn't look at her. She did look at _him_, at least for a second, before the nudity made her blush. She saw he had... gills? over his rib cage. The ribs heaved; the gills fluttered. Definitely scared.

She walked around to his side and then behind him. When she passed she saw him swallow hard, flinch a little, tense up. His hands were fisted. He was staring at something – the crack of sunlight where the curtains were open, maybe? – and he wouldn't move his eyes.

"So," she said from behind him. Hands on her hips now, not that he could see it, but still. "You wanted to apologize? Then apologize. I'm listening."

"Uh." He took a deep breath. Relaxed a little, and only then did she realize how absolutely stiff he had been standing. "Uh, Starlight: I'm sorry."

"You said that already." Harsh and cold. "You said it on TV. Honestly, I didn't find it convincing. I still don't." She could feel anger rising. Soon she was going to stomp around and look him in the face... except she didn't really want to, because for some reason she'd made him be naked and she wasn't exactly in the habit of chatting with naked men about the ways in which they had wronged her. "Do you even know what you're apologizing for?" She snarled at his back. "Do you have _any idea_ how you made me feel?"

She saw him jerk – a shudder, it looked like. "Uh, yeah." His voice had gone lower. "I do, okay, and-, you're right, I didn't. Look, I didn't mean to make you feel that way. I wouldn't have." He let out a slow sigh. "I'm not a... I wouldn't have done that to someone on purpose. Okay?"

It hit her suddenly: how did he understand what _that_ was? _I do, _he said, and _I didn't_.

His all-over tension took on a whole new meaning, and she stepped around him fast to look him in the face.

"Deep." She reached out and touched him under the chin, tapped him almost, to get him to make eye contact. "Did something happen?"

He pulled away from her, spewing out a stream of denial. "No, what do you mean, what you mean did something happen, of course nothing happened."

Right. He was shifting on his feet, angling his body away from her, shoulders hunched protectively. Still alone and afraid and encroached-on, but now she didn't want that anymore. Her anger had drained away and all she felt was bad.

She decided to take pity. But how? Ordering him to dress himself again, standing over him while he struggled clumsily back into his tangled suit, didn't seem to be the right answer. She looked around. Her hotel robe was thrown over the back of the chair, dry by now, so she reached for it and held it out. "Hey." She waited til he looked at her. "Here."

He glanced down at it, then back to her face. Took it without a word.

Once he'd wrapped himself up he found a little of his attitude again. "Yeah well, like I said: _nothing_ happened to me." But his _look _was honest and she knew exactly what he was telling her. "But I do get it now, and I'm sorry."

"I believe you." She sighed. "And I'm sorry too," she added, "For all this." She gestured to him.

He shrugged, restless. "It's okay. I deserved it."Then he raised eyebrows at her – challenging now, like the kid who thinks the lecture should be just about over. "And I'll never ever ever shove my dick in your face again," he lilted, almost mocking, like it was really too obvious to have to say. "Okay?"

"Okay. I believe you." She did. She would be able to do the press conference now and mean it. "So do we go down and tell them we've made up?"

"Uh." He snorted. "How about I get dressed first. People might get the absolute wrong idea."

She laughed. "Good call." While he dressed she wandered over to the window and looked out it – giving him privacy, as if it wasn't already way too late for that politeness. _Whatever. He deserved it,_ she told herself, and nobody would argue with that. Including him, now, apparently.

Finally he said: "Okay. All set." She turned and he was all suited up again. He looked completely different from the vulnerability of a few minutes ago, and she knew that when he flashed that stupid cocky grin of his it would only get worse.

She'd just have to remember, now, that she knew what was behind it. "I'm fine," he insisted, as if he'd read her mind.

"Yeah." She smiled. "So am I." _Right._

He didn't ask whether she forgave him – good; she wouldn't have known how to answer – but he held his hand out and they shook, like for a truce. It was a start.

* * *

**The End?**

**Not sure I'm done with this yet. But I'm not sure where it's going, either, so for now this is it. Please let me know what you think, if you have thoughts about any continuation, etc. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed!**


End file.
